Our Week...

YIKES!!!

Aly

I thought this was a fun shot of "the Girls" hanging out on the couch.

We are all home and slowly getting back into normal routines. It was great to have Les's mom here with us. We nicknamed her Cinderella. Thanks to Kevin and family and Erik and family for stopping by. It was fun to see all the cousins playing together. We are up to eighteen Zirker cousins and split even with 9 boys and 9 girls. Matt and Kimbre get to break the tie.

Brant

More Pictures

At the Salt Lake Temple on our Wedding Day
Carl and Louise playing tennis

Martha and one of their Tortoises

Martha and Louise at High School Graduation

Martha and Louise

Linda, Martha, John

Grandpa Backlund, Martha, Carl Backlund, John

I spent a few hours this week sorting though a box of pictures Mom brought out and then scanning them on our new scanner/copier/printer/fax. It does a very nice job and is quite speedy.

You would think spring is here. Temps in the 40's and 50's. This week they are supposed to drop to the single digits. It is just teasing us into thinking spring is just around the corner.

Mom finished her report cards this week. She puts together a nice packet for each child along with the report card. It is a lot of work but looks nice in the end.

I taught the 5th Sunday Lesson in 3rd Ward today. Bishop Wynn Mosman asked me to come explain what and how the members are supposed to clean the buildings now. I think is went pretty well.

Mom and I went out to Staples yesterday and bought new cordless phones. The system has a base station and three phones. We put one in the kitchen, one by "my couch", and the other one is still in the box. Don't know where to put it yet. I'm not big on phones in the bathroom. Too many strange noises.

Congrats to Brant, Leslie and family. New babies are wonderful and bring such excitement to a family. We loved the pictures. Send more when you get a chance.

Be good this week.

Snow Caving

Two weeks ago, the Boy Scouts in our ward announced they would be doing their annual snow caving winter camp out (Jan 21/22). I asked the Scoutmaster if I qualified as adult supervision and after debating it, he lamented and let me come along. We had a rather large group, roughly 15 boys and 11 leaders. We carpooled up to Lookout Pass on the ID/MT border and hiked in about a mile and a half under a mix of rain, sleet, and snow. Due to our large group and late start, we dug out snow caves in the fading light and finished with the assistance of headlamps (worth every penny).

Another leader and I decided to forgo all of the formal training provided the week before and chose to dig a cave patterned after a snow fort. We dug into the hillside thinking the snow would have drifted and been deeper, but ended up hitting roots, branches, rocks, and a log or two. With some creative engineering and modifying we were able to make room for two to sleep in exist in and do nothing else. We couldn't even sit up. After finishing our snow cave, we attempted to help out some of the other boys who were having a rough go or who were just too cold and wet to do it right.

In the evening we attempted to start a fire and dug down about 4 1/2 feet to solid ground. The fire would never take due to the soggy frozen wood and we all ended up standing around our respective caves cooking Mountain House meals over our backpacking stoves. With no place to sit and no place to get out of the weather, we did a lot of standing around. At about midnight we did a final check on the boys and turned in for the night. I was warm all night in my bag with just wool socks, long johns, and a few hand warmers. Despite being warm I did not sleep well and dozed off and on for an hour or two at a time. At eight in the morning it was time to break out of the claustrophobic cocoons and start packing up. Everyone made it through the night with all of their fingers and toes and no cave-ins. It was a quick overnight trip, but a lot of fun.

Here is a group shot back at the trail head before we loaded up and left for home. That's me rockin' the classic wool sweater.

Just for Fun

How about a wedding picture. Carl & Louise Backlund.

Lots of New Pictures

After dinner today Mom brought out a whole box of pictures of her family so you can guess what will be on the blog for the next few weeks. There are some really cool ones. In case you can't guess, Mom is the little blond one on the right.

We enjoyed church today. Good lessons and good people. Sam (Devoe) Stott and her husband talked in Sacrament Meeting. They gave excellent talks. We are teaching them in our temple prep class. They are about 1/2 way through and anxious to go to the temple.

Mom and I had a great time with Matt and Kimbre on Thursday. We went shopping and got some "larger" clothes for Kimbre. I didn't see them but they said they were cute. I went with Matt and looked at guns. We had a nice lunch at Rod Robin.

We hadn't seen Tracy Stavros for a couple of weeks so last week I asked Shane where she was. He said, "she moved out". We don't know the story but she is living in an apartment down by Les Schwab. When we got home from church today they were both in her car and just pulling out. He waved as they left. We don't know what will happen but hope for the best for them. They have been great neighbors.

Our weather is up in the 50's again so maybe we are pulling out of winter. My eyes say yes but my mind says it is way too early.

Lots of Love.

High School Graduation

I have been working though all the pictures I down-loaded from Grandpa's computer last summer. I have spent hours working on it and finally today I gave up. I have extracted all of the old original pictures I could find and everything else looked like newer stuff and was getting more and more generations removed from grandma and grandpa. So, when I thought I had gleaned all I could I deleted 45,000 pictures. Don't panic. many of them were the same thing over and over again. I think he would forget where he put things and copy them again.

I found this picture and thought it was nice. If I remember right, Grandma Shields made all my Mom's dresses by hand. This is her high school graduation dress.

More Lego Creations

Flexi-Bot - SuperHero
Flabber-Gaster - SuperVillian


Golden-Rod - SuperVillian

Blue-Goo - SuperVillian

Plane

Another Plane

Ty

I Just Found This Picture

I was going through Grandpa's pictures tonight and found this picture. One boy looks happy and the other looks a little apprehensive.

Weather Report

Here we sit in Moscow at 7:00 pm and the temperature is over 50 degrees. Mom and I took several detours on the way to church today. There were police at the east end of F street checking the creek. As we turned onto Mountainview at D street we passed a back-hoe headed toward McDonald school. The creek was at it's limits and spreading out in the low areas all the way to church. The overflow they build a few years ago that has the big berm along the street just north of the church had water running in it. Our snow is all gone except the piles in the parking lots and here and there along the roads. It is supposed to cool a little this week so flooding should slow down.

Mom and I are headed to Post Falls on Thursday to visit and shop with Matt and Kimbre. We each took a day off and plan to enjoy the day. Tomorrow we both have the day off but we will probably just stay home and work on projects. Mom works on school stuff and I plan to work through some more of Grandpa Zirker's pictures from his computer.

Have a good week.

Our most recent adventure

There is this cute little ice skating rink in Downtown Denver that we had to check out yesterday. The kids have never been so it was definitely an adventure. The girls tried pushing around those red walker type things. Adria and Kevin were a pro at it. He could push her around the rink pretty quickly. I don't know how she didn't fall. Raya and Kanyon liked the wall. Braxton caught on quick and was cruising around the rink with the "bigger more confident kids". It was a fun way to spend a few hours together, out doors. Luckily the weather was great. Now today, we have 6-8 inches of snow and Kevin is out plowing. Mother Nature sure is crazy!

it's been awhile...

Not too much is going on right now for us. Seth starts school this week, which means we'll finally be back to some sort of routine! He has had three weeks off from school and only half days at work. I'll be sitting this semester out, but I hope to take some sort of course this summer whether on campus or online. I really enjoyed my class last semester and I managed to get an A, so that made it even more enjoyable. I'm hoping to grow strawberrypearl with my free time this semester.

This is our Christmas Eve pajama picture. We spent the night at our place, did Santa presents in the morning and then went to the parents. It was a little interesting doing Christmas on our own for the first time, but I kind of enjoyed it. We even started some last minute traditions and Santa's workshop was hammering away into the wee hours of the morning just like the good ol' days.

This is a random picture. I ironed Weston's church clothes for him a couple of weeks ago and then he decided to goof around instead of getting dressed and the clothes ended up in a wrinkly mess on the floor. So, I lowered the ironing board for him and taught him how to iron. It was supposed to be punishment, but he and Koper rather enjoyed it. They've been ironing each week since then.

Pretty Slow Week

It was a slow week at the ranch. The weather improved and then got cold again. Mom and I went to work and then came home again. I had to do some training for the Lewiston Stake on Thursday night and then again last night. Mom rode down with me last night to keep me company (and awake). In case I forgot to mention it, the church hired a new Facilities Manager to take over in the Post Falls area so I will not be traveling to north Idaho and Montana like I thought. It was a nice experience for three months and I met some nice people but it is good to just worry about my little corner of the world. I did enjoy staying overnight with Matt and Kimbre on several occasions.

Our printer died last week so Monday evening for Family Home Evening Mom and I went out to Staples and bought a new one. We got an HP 4-in-1. It is fast, easy, and does a great job. It was on sale plus they gave us $50 for our old machine. Mom loves the new one. We now each have a computer and printer. I hooked the new printer to the wireless router and both computers can use it wireless. I am becoming a real techno-wizard.

Thanks Travis and Kelly for representing the family at Aunt Linda and Uncle Joe's missionary report. We wish we could have been there but is was nice of you to drive up and report for our family.

Take care and let us know what is going on with your families.

One More...

This is Ty and Katie coming down the hill around "Suicide Corner" with commentary by Aimee. The video doesn't do it justice, you get going pretty fast around that last corner.

Brant

Baseball Card Artwork

Trent drew a picture of some of his favorite baseball cards.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Ready to go!

Headed up the tow.

Here comes Ty!

Brant and Kori

Katie and Aimee on the double tube.

Mom and Kori

I think the smile says it all.

Warming Up!

As you know, Mom and Dad gave each family a load of money proportional to their birth order. We took our inheritance and squandered it on some awesome tubing. The weather was cold (-9 in the morning) but the kids still had a lot of fun. We went to a place called Beaver Meadows, west of of Fort Collins. THANK YOU G&G ZIRKER!

Brant

Back to school this week.

School starts up for us this Wednesday. It will be my last semester of school and Kelly hopes we'll finally be off to a new adventure when it's over. We had a great Christmas and made it back to Orem on Tuesday. Since then, we've done a lot of sitting around, watched the final season of The West Wing, and entertained guests with food poisoning. Yesterday we were on our way home from Heber and we managed to drive right through the middle of a six car/one truck accident (at least that many, maybe more). We threaded right through the middle of it as cars all around us slid on the ice into each other in Provo canyon. Nothing like that to provide some excitement for the day. Kelly was unhappy that she slept through most of it (don't worry, I was driving not her).

1,300 Post

We made it back safely from our trip to AZ. We had a pleasurable time and Kevin did an immense amount of woodworking in the shop. It's fun to create when you have the right tools. The beds were set up within hours of us returning home. The boys were excited to not have to sleep on the floor anymore. Thanks Dad Zirker for all the photos and measurements for the beds. They turned out very professional!